New toy time! - Samsung Galaxy S3

More of a forced upon me change this one, but I still do love a new toy as return readers and/or people who know me already are well aware of, but usually I seek them out rather than them being forced!

I've had some issues with the three network over the months, their poor signal, poor service, the disaster of a phone call trying to cancel my mobile broadband... it's all built up.

The mobile signal was the ongoing issue though, and finally, after my 5th time of referring it to the 100% outsourced call centre, they agreed the product wasn't for me and allowed me to return the phone and go elsewhere. Bye bye my lovely iPhone 4, I enjoyed using you, if not using you particularly quickly or at all in areas with poor signal quality.

But what now? I need a new phone and fairly quickly as my three stuff ends today.

Come sunny Sunday morning, after some online research and asking on facebook/twitter (@andrewdrisc!) to Carphone Warehouse we headed to have a moment of hands on with the shortlist:

iPhone 4s
Samsung Galaxy s3
HTC One x

It took me about 14 seconds to make the decision, it was a Galaxy all the way, not this galaxy

Or sadly this one:

but this one (in blue):

I've now had it for a couple of days and I'm impressed, some of the things that made me android wary aren't really issues at all, their app store is good, I'm not missing anything I use regularly and have found new stuff, it runs easy is simple to use and their version of iTunes, while it doesn't sell stuff, runs... just like iTunes. 

The phone itself is great, the screen is lovely, its responsive and while the battery isn't great still, in it's infancy it's easily adequate (and if needed you can take it out and replace it!!). There'll be some getting used to it, but as of now I'm very happy with my purchase.

The contract comes with unlimited data and tethering (which I'm using right now!) and the signal... well there is some, I have signal! This feels a bit weird after about a year of cutting out calls and no 3G. Bravo T-Mobile/Orange.

Now I've never been a tech snob, any brand has a shout with me, it's all about the quality of the product, but I did like my iPhone(s). The iPhone 5 is coming i know and I'm sure it'll be lovely and shiny and new a feature packed, but I had to choose now and by the looks of it I've made a cracking choice.

I will take this opportunity to have a last swing at three though, honestly people these are best avoided. The signal can be poor, obviously not everywhere, but everywhere I wanted and the service is worse. Avoid!

I love iTunes

What's that iTunes? There's a new version of iOS available for my phone? How exciting! 5.1 you say? Well of course you can download it and update my mobile, what could possibly go wrong there?

This is the general conversation that went through my head as the usual new software popped up after I plugged my phone into the old netbook and iTunes kicked in. I of course allowed it to continue, but what followed turned out to be a pain in the arse!

Software downloads fail all the time, especially from apple, so it wasn't a massive surprise when after 30 or so minutes of downloading and a brief installation attempt it informed me all had indeed gone tits up and it would now be kind enough to restore the phone to what it was, only there was a problem there too. Things not going well, but then the phone starts to come on anyway and everything's fine...or not, I not have a lovely iPhone 4 on factory settings. No apps no nothing.

Swiftly and with the poise of an IT professional (which I'm not) I restore a backup of my phone made not 1 hour earlier, and after several... dozen minutes of waiting, the phone restores the data and to my surprise everything seemingly goes ok, even the in app data is fully restored to it's previous glory. Even my Temple Run high score (2.3m) remains in tact.

But also, the strangest thing, according to iTunes, I now have 5 gig of memory free, when before it was stacked to the rafters. Funny as well as the new found free space was almost exactly the same as the memory taken up by my... cock biscuits.

I quick trip to 'Music' app confirms it, every trace of an mp3 (or equivalent iTunes compatible format) is gone. So while writing this I've also started slowly adding songs to thee phone from my iTunes library. Which itself has presented brand new issues, I'm skipping past most of it thinking... meh, never listened to it anyway.

So far I've managed to add about 9 songs to the phone, but I am still on C for the artist name, so there's some distance to go yet. But nothing in inspiring me, bad times. I think I need some new music, any suggestions feel free, ooh and to anyone who would suggest Beady Eye or High Flying birds, save yourself the keyboard wear and don't.

iOS5 and the 3200 error

I've had some fun with technology the last few days. Firstly I switch on my netbook on Monday evening and the screen is screwed up, green lines, flashing pixels like green snow, colour scheme that would make Windows 95 look classy, to say I wasn't impressed wouldn't exactly be an understatement. After some brief internet searching, I discovered the area around the side of the screen was somehow coming apart, so I clicked that back in, still the same.

Then I closed the netbook in annoyance and noticed the battery bit thing wasn't straight, somehow something there had come loose too. Out came the battery, and a quick repair later and I had one netbook looking like nothing had ever happened to it.

So I thought right, that's my weekly machine break down, it's all good. Then last night I decided to try n get a bit of iOS5 action going on for my little soon to be out of date little iPhone. I was expecting slowness having the drawn out process of going os3 - os4 still in my memory, but thought fuck it lets go.

The first part was more a lesson than anything, don't ignore iTunes updates, as I think I had to do about 150 updates to that first (that may be an exaggeration... may be). But then I was ready to go. I began the download, all ok and done in about 30 mins, much better than I was expecting, iTunes then backed up the creatively titled 'Andrews iPhone' (imagination pumps from every pore on times), it was time.

Time? Yeah! Time to friggin crash!

I was greeted with the soon to be infamous 3200 error, iTunes didn't know what it was or if it did it didn't want to tell me. The update stopped and the phone reverted to its previous state. OK, no big deal, no harm done. Let's try again. Same thing happened.

"To google!" I exclaimed (in my head) and started a search for this problem. Of course the Internet was instantly filled with know-it-alls who were making it their business to tell everyone how to fix it as they knew cos they were clever. They varied from restarting PCs to restarting phones to reinstalling iTunes itself. Nice one assholes, I've heard people talk shit before and I spotted it a mile off, so ignored them. However there was one, reasonable sounding post saying to just keep trying eventually it worked and they thought 3200 was some kind of server issue due to traffic.

This all made sense, it was doubtless busy at the moment, so I soldiered on. Numberous times I was thwarted at the metaphorical gates of Mordor by this 3200 error, but I battled back, only to be pushed back again. Then finally... it connected, the installation started, this was it... iOS5 would be mine.

Boom in comes a 3004 error and stops it dead, only this time no revert, I'm stuck in restore mode. I have no idea how to get out of restore mode. I stomp off for 5, phoneless...

A bit of research tells me how to reset the phone using the buttons, I do so and try again. 3200 kicks my ass all over again. Twitter is alight with part 'yay os5' tweets and part '3200 gumble grumble' ones. With a side helping of smug Android users (easy to be consistent if you never try anything new). One more item I think, just one more time...

Battle of Los Angeles (that's battle of, not Battle: Los Angeles) had been playing in the background thanks to Syfy+1 and was about to finish (and may I say what a piece of dog turd that film is. I know it's one of the Asylum low budget cash in films, but Jesus Christ, how do you make films this bad??) so I knew it was late.

I hit restore one last time and bingo, it worked, iOS5 was mine took seemingly an age to update and then it was done. To be honest, looks a bit prettier in places but so far not noticing a ton of changes, but I have used it for about 15 minutes to date. But improvements are the subject for another day. This was about my battle against 3200 and how I won!

Go me...

RIP iPhone

After between 22 and 23 months by my side with almost unfailingly decent levels of service, my iPhone will die today. It no longer wishes to charge itself, and being an iPhone, this gives it a very short life expectancy.

Sadly this also leaves my mobile phone-less until I'm due an upgrade, which thankfully isn't too long, so if you need to get hold of me... tough.

The phone went through some tough times, it lost it's volume buttons, but it carried on. It took a tumble through a massive hole in my pocket onto a harsh Tenerife street (you know the typical Spanish kind with the little squares) and cracked its screen, but it carried on going. But like so many older devices, it started to get confused, telling me the accessory wasn't optimised for iPhone, when I hadn't actually got anything plugged into it... freezing up during calls, and sometimes not even wanting to receive them at all.

Now it looks like the little weekend away in Burnham on sea was it's last action as a useful device (thanks Gracie), it's farewell tour if you will. Now it's refusing to be fed, there's just 24% of the battery left of its life, so about an hour and a half then!

Not wishing to sound heartless, throwing away my long time companion and replacing it with a newer shiner model without a second thought, but it's only a phone! This does open the door to be acquiring an iPhone4! Yes, of course I know the iPhone5 isn't all that far behind, I am a fully paid up member of geek you don't have to tell me, but circumstances have forced my hand. Plus the 4 will be more than adequate for my needs.

I've already started having a look around, and I've already assumed o2 are not going to offer me a decent deal and will frown at my data usage and the early leader is three. For the same as I'm paying now, they'll give me ludicrous amounts of texts and calls and most vitally, 'unlimited' data (I haven't checked the old t&c's yet and am fully aware there is probably some kind of cap or fair use policy, but it's still better than 500mb) all with an iPhone4 (either colour... woo-hoo...) for exactly the same as I paid for my 3GS all those many many months ago.

I will ring up o2 and give them a chance to explain their early upgrade procedures before I laugh in their general direction when the price is mentioned. Or I could wait a month 'til they'll upgrade me anyway. Not sure when I'll ring, or indeed on what, but I'll ring! Have to asses my options from that point.

Last night I frantically backed up music, photos, but not contacts... hmm oversight there and it's only just occurred to me, oh well...